Alien: Isolation - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Creative Assembly, a studio known for the historical strategy of the Total War series, doesn’t seem like the obvious origin point for one of the great modern horror games. Alien: Isolation [official site] is not only a brilliant, terrifying creation, however, it’s one of the best uses of a license we’re ever likely to see.

… [visit site to read more]

Alien: Isolation

In my day, Mac games were limited to playing tag in your raincoat, so it's always great to see the Macintosh's relatively tiny game library expand. The latest big-budget developer to offer a Mac version of one of their games is Creative Assembly, whose Alien: Isolation is coming to Mac—and Linux—next week.

Feral Interactive are handling conversion duties, and they're bringing it to Steam for both Mac and Linux on September 29. (It's also coming to the Mac App Store sometime in October.) It's the 'Alien: Isolation - The Collection' version of the game, meaning it includes all the DLC. Here's a trailer:

The minimum system requirements for both versions are below.

Mac

  • 2.0Ghz CPU with at least 4GB RAM
  • 1GB or better graphics card
  • Mac OS 10.10.4 or later
  • AMD 5000 series graphics card or better, NVIDIA 600 series or better and Intel Iris Pro series graphics card or better

Linux

  • 2.6Ghz Dual-Core CPU with at least 4GB RAM
  • 1GB or better graphics card
  • Ubuntu 14.04 (64bit) or SteamOS
  • The game requires an NVIDIA 600 series graphics card or better running Driver version 355.11 or better. Intel AMD and GPUs are not supported
  • A Steam account is required
Left 4 Dead 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

Below you will find the 25 best horror games ever released on PC. To ensure the list was as accurate as possible, the compiler was locked in a dark cellar with a copy of every game in existence and a computer capable of running them all. Two weeks later, the following article was found written on the walls in blood (the postscript was recorded on an audiolog). The writer was nowhere to be seen.

… [visit site to read more]

Alien: Isolation - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Ben Barrett)

As the chaos spreads throughout Steamville, wallets and bank vaults spread upon and fed upon by the roving packs of deals, the floating Seattle shudders as it rotates to face a new threat. A colossal rumbling fills the air as over the horizon rises a geometric shape of horrifying, ridiculous proportions. Three prongs jut out from the surface of an oblong, miles wide and covered in blue and red markings in a sickening combination. The Third Epact has arrived.

What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we’ll be offering our picks – based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 4 of the sale.>

… [visit site to read more]

Half-Life - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Gathering together the best shooters is no easy task, but if you’re looking for a new PC FPS to play, look no further.

Your favourite game is at number 51.

… [visit site to read more]

Alien: Isolation - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Jem Alexander)

According to Sega’s latest financial report, space stealth-em-up Alien: Isolation [official site] had sold 2.1 million units across all platforms at the end of March. It comfortably outsold the publisher’s other new releases during the same year, such as Football Manager 2015 (810k sales) and the two Sonic Boom games (620k total sales).

… [visit site to read more]

Alien: Isolation

Consolidated financial statements are a great way to lend an air of legitimacy to the job of writing news about games. It means I get to use phrases like "year-to-date", "equity in earnings" and "operating income for the previous fiscal period"—thus sounding like a serious journalist, even when four years of professionally writing about games has left me grossly unable to report on basic real-world journalistic concepts like law, politics, money or the comings and goings of reality TV stars.

That was a long opening paragraph. Sorry. Here's the news: Sega's full-year financial report for the 12-month period ending March 31 shows, in their words, "weak" performance in packaged game software—a category that, confusingly, includes digital PC sales. In total, the publisher sold 12.3 million units, which, while a year-on-year increase, was clearly below their expectations.

Breaking it down further, we can see sales totals for the company's releases. The multiplatform Alien: Isolation, for instance, shifted 2.11 million copies. The PC-only Football Manager 2015, meanwhile, sold 810,000 copies.

It's a shame that Alien: Isolation sold—from a multi-year AAA-project perspective—so little. It's a great interpretation of the Alien formula, and deservedly our game of 2014. Hopefully the less enthusiastic commercial reception won't stop Creative Assembly being able to do more with that team—as a recent job posting suggests they would like to do.

Thanks, GamesIndustry.

Alien: Isolation - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

and I didn't make a Soldner joke even once ah dammit

You might remember Sonder as an intriguing-sounding real-time Day In The Life In Space game which boasted a prog-rock soundtrack. We’ve not covered it for a couple of years, but it’s just broken cover with news that it’s going episodic, and somehow also has The Who on its latest trailer. … [visit site to read more]

PC Gamer

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference have generously posted many videos of the sessions recorded at this year's show online. You need to be a member to see some of them, but there's no shortage of fascinating talks that are available for free. After looking through them, these are some of the free sessions we think you shouldn't miss.

VR for Indies

Virtual reality was without a doubt the theme of GDC 2015. Sony had a new Morpheus model, Valve demoed Vive, and Carmack was on stage talking up mobile VR. However, the most down to earth, realistic session I saw about VR at GDC was VR for Indies, where Darknet developer E McNeill, Max Geiger, Ben Kane, Holden Link, and Vi Hart talked about how smaller developers can take advantage of this new technology, or if they even should. They weren't there to pitch you on a new product. They just talked honestly about what can be done now, and can hopefully be done in the future.

The Power of the Abstract

In this session, indie developer and game critic Liz Ryerson makes a really strong case for why we should stop chasing super realistic graphics and games that aim to emulate reality as closely as possible and instead consider the power of the abstract. It's not only a fascinating perspective, Ryerson also mentions several interesting games during her talk that you can download and play right now.

Growing the Participation of Women in eSports

Ever wonder why there aren't more women in eSports? This talk from professional players, Blizzard's Kim Phan, and Heather "SapphiRe" Mumm from the ESEA will not only tell you why, but what we can do to fix the problem.

The Dawn of Mobile VR

Look, I'm not even going to pretend that I understand what John Carmack is saying half the time, but I do know when I'm the presence of genius. Carmack made Doom, he dabbles in rocket science just for kicks, and he's doing a lot of important work on the current resurgence of virtual reality. Here he's talking about mobile VR, but you'll learn a lot about Oculus in general, and it's always interesting to hear him talk.

Divinity: Original Sin Postmortem - Success Stories and Lessons Learned

Divinity: Original Sin was easily one of the best games of last year, and a perfect example of what makes PC gaming so great. In this session, Larian Studio's Swen Vincke explains how they created Divinity. Spoiler alert: it wasn't easy.

Building Fear in Alien: Isolation

Speaking of some of the best game of last year, this session will tell you all about how Creative Assembly created PC Gamer's 2014 Game of the Year, Alien: Isolation. One of the coolest things about this session is that at some point Creative Assembly considered making Alien: Isolation a third-person game, and there's even the footage to prove it.

Building a Sport: The Design Philosophy of League of Legends

If you play League of Legends, watching this session should be mandatory. Ryan "Morello" Scott, League of Legends' Lead Designer, and Frank Lantz, the Director of the New York University Game Center, discuss how Riot Games designs and balances an eSports sensation that over 70 million play every month. Lantz is a big fan of the game, Scott is surprisingly open, and it's really interesting to hear them nerd out about the design decisions, big to small, that make League of Legends tick, even if you don't play it.

#1ReasonToBe

2014 was a pretty difficult year for women in the games industry. In the #1ReasonToBe session, game developer Brenda Romero hosts a panel including game critic Leigh Alexander, developer Adriel Wallick, Uncharted writer and current creative director at EA Amy Henning, and others who work in different parts of the industry. They discuss the highs and lows of their experience in games, and how to create a more inclusive way forward. 

Alien: Isolation
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